Simple Solution

[DK117]

Nitro / Chem Geek and all you seasoned hands:

I've spent most of my time on the tub side, not the chemistry side of this forum. I'm in week two of tub ownership. What would be wrong with someone doing this?

Fill tub.

1 oz dichlor a day

1 oz MPS a week

on week two, switch to

2 oz Chlorox 6% a day

1 oz MPS a week

I haven't had to use PH + or - or anything else for that matter. Is it really this easy? I understand temp, usage of the tub, cleanliness of the tubbers, water source, and a ton of other factors come into play. But why not start with a suggestion like the above (or please improve / suggest a no brainer approach.) Then, after that simple approach goes awry start to get into the chemistry? Am I just lucky, or is everyone's water perfect after two weeks??? Or maybe my test strips aren't accurate enough to notice the variations?

DK117

[BigDfromTN]

Nitro / Chem Geek and all you seasoned hands:

I've spent most of my time on the tub side, not the chemistry side of this forum. I'm in week two of tub ownership. What would be wrong with someone doing this?

Fill tub.

1 oz dichlor a day

1 oz MPS a week

on week two, switch to

2 oz Chlorox 6% a day

1 oz MPS a week

I haven't had to use PH + or - or anything else for that matter. Is it really this easy? I understand temp, usage of the tub, cleanliness of the tubbers, water source, and a ton of other factors come into play. But why not start with a suggestion like the above (or please improve / suggest a no brainer approach.) Then, after that simple approach goes awry start to get into the chemistry? Am I just lucky, or is everyone's water perfect after two weeks??? Or maybe my test strips aren't accurate enough to notice the variations?

DK117

After balancing hardness and PH. That is about what I have done! Very simple.

Not a seasoned veteran yet, but getting there.

[Nitro]

Nitro / Chem Geek and all you seasoned hands:

I've spent most of my time on the tub side, not the chemistry side of this forum. I'm in week two of tub ownership. What would be wrong with someone doing this?

Fill tub.

1 oz dichlor a day

1 oz MPS a week

on week two, switch to

2 oz Chlorox 6% a day

1 oz MPS a week

I haven't had to use PH + or - or anything else for that matter. Is it really this easy? I understand temp, usage of the tub, cleanliness of the tubbers, water source, and a ton of other factors come into play. But why not start with a suggestion like the above (or please improve / suggest a no brainer approach.) Then, after that simple approach goes awry start to get into the chemistry? Am I just lucky, or is everyone's water perfect after two weeks??? Or maybe my test strips aren't accurate enough to notice the variations?

DK117

It's better to understand what you're doing, than to just blindly do it. That is because if/when something goes wrong, you're better equip to handle it. Even if your fill water is well balanced, it won't stay that way. You need to keep track of your TA/pH, and test strips just don't cut it. You're not seeing the true picture. Two weeks is not really long enough for things to go wrong. After a month or two you'll have a better idea.

To answer your question directly, it is easy to maintain your water, but it's not that easy.

[OttawaGreg]

Nitro / Chem Geek and all you seasoned hands:

I've spent most of my time on the tub side, not the chemistry side of this forum. I'm in week two of tub ownership. What would be wrong with someone doing this?

Fill tub.

1 oz dichlor a day

1 oz MPS a week

on week two, switch to

2 oz Chlorox 6% a day

1 oz MPS a week

I haven't had to use PH + or - or anything else for that matter. Is it really this easy? I understand temp, usage of the tub, cleanliness of the tubbers, water source, and a ton of other factors come into play. But why not start with a suggestion like the above (or please improve / suggest a no brainer approach.) Then, after that simple approach goes awry start to get into the chemistry? Am I just lucky, or is everyone's water perfect after two weeks??? Or maybe my test strips aren't accurate enough to notice the variations?

DK117

Test strips are not accurate enough. Trust me, I just got a drop test kit and after each reading I check again with the test strip to see how far off it is.. often quite a bit.

I've got a baseline now for the two types of test strips I use off my drop test kit. They can tell me if sanitizer is present and if it's at a decent level, a fair estimate of the pH, and usually a very rough guess of TA.

If things are not balanced you'll start to see it later, two weeks is not long enough.

Greg

[Mikey_in_NY]

Nitro / Chem Geek and all you seasoned hands:

I've spent most of my time on the tub side, not the chemistry side of this forum. I'm in week two of tub ownership. What would be wrong with someone doing this?

Fill tub.

1 oz dichlor a day

1 oz MPS a week

on week two, switch to

2 oz Chlorox 6% a day

1 oz MPS a week

I haven't had to use PH + or - or anything else for that matter. Is it really this easy? I understand temp, usage of the tub, cleanliness of the tubbers, water source, and a ton of other factors come into play. But why not start with a suggestion like the above (or please improve / suggest a no brainer approach.) Then, after that simple approach goes awry start to get into the chemistry? Am I just lucky, or is everyone's water perfect after two weeks??? Or maybe my test strips aren't accurate enough to notice the variations?

DK117

After balancing hardness and PH. That is about what I have done! Very simple.

Not a seasoned veteran yet, but getting there.

Same here - new tub owner and basically using this method, although in addition to the daily chlorox and weekly MPS I've also been shocking with Dichlor once a week, but I've recently stopped that following advice from Chem Geek, see following post...

http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21920

Water is now 9 weeks old with great PH/TA balance, and crystal clear. I'm real happy after the intial problems I experienced, which lead to me dumping the water after only 2.5 weeks. If it makes any difference my tub has an ozonator and 24 hour circ pump. Filter cycle comes on 3 times per day for 30 mins.

[quantumchromodynamics]

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

[NW_Traveler]

I'm a little confused on the dichlor rules of thumb. I saw on one post 3.5 tsp of dichlor per person hour, and here 1 tsp a day.

I have a 355 gallong tub, and when I type either of these into the pool calculator I get really high FC levels. For instance, 1 oz of dichlor which is 2 tsp raises FC by 11.7.

What am I missing?

Thanks,

AC

[mcw53]

I'm a little confused on the dichlor rules of thumb. I saw on one post 3.5 tsp of dichlor per person hour, and here 1 tsp a day.

The OP stated 1 ounce/day, not 1 tsp/day.

I have a 355 gallong tub, and when I type either of these into the pool calculator I get really high FC levels. For instance, 1 oz of dichlor which is 2 tsp raises FC by 11.7.

1 ounce is 6 teaspoons, not 2.

The rough rule-of-thumb is that it takes 3.5 teaspoons of dichlor, or 5 fluid ounces of 6% bleach, or 7 teaspoons of 43% MPS to oxidize the waste generated by 1 person-hour soak. I have found this to be fairly accurate for me, leaving a residual (~1ppm) free chlorine prior to my next soak.

3.5 teaspoons (.5833 oz) of dichlor will raise FC by 6.8 ppm in your tub. This is what you would need to add after 1 person hour soak. Use the rule-of-thumb and adjust as necessary.

After you have added a total of 17 teaspoons dichlor, your CYA will be about 30 ppm and you should then switch to 6% unscented bleach (e.g. Clorox Regular).

[NW_Traveler]

I'm a little confused on the dichlor rules of thumb. I saw on one post 3.5 tsp of dichlor per person hour, and here 1 tsp a day.

The OP stated 1 ounce/day, not 1 tsp/day.

I have a 355 gallong tub, and when I type either of these into the pool calculator I get really high FC levels. For instance, 1 oz of dichlor which is 2 tsp raises FC by 11.7.

1 ounce is 6 teaspoons, not 2.

The rough rule-of-thumb is that it takes 3.5 teaspoons of dichlor, or 5 fluid ounces of 6% bleach, or 7 teaspoons of 43% MPS to oxidize the waste generated by 1 person-hour soak. I have found this to be fairly accurate for me, leaving a residual (~1ppm) free chlorine prior to my next soak.

3.5 teaspoons (.5833 oz) of dichlor will raise FC by 6.8 ppm in your tub. This is what you would need to add after 1 person hour soak. Use the rule-of-thumb and adjust as necessary.

After you have added a total of 17 teaspoons dichlor, your CYA will be about 30 ppm and you should then switch to 6% unscented bleach (e.g. Clorox Regular).

Thanks, this is making a lot more sense now. I re-weighed, and it turns out my scale is innaccurate at less than 1/2 oz so it was weighing a tsp there. Once I weighed several tsp together it was more accurate. Thanks for clarifying!

[mcw53]

Thanks, this is making a lot more sense now. I re-weighed, and it turns out my scale is innaccurate at less than 1/2 oz so it was weighing a tsp there. Once I weighed several tsp together it was more accurate. Thanks for clarifying!

Part of the confusion might be ounce (weight) vs ounce (volume). I was referring to ounce as volume (i.e. fluid ounce).

1 fluid ounce = 2 tablespoons = 6 teaspoons = ~1.08 ounce (wt)

[NW_Traveler]

Thanks, this is making a lot more sense now. I re-weighed, and it turns out my scale is innaccurate at less than 1/2 oz so it was weighing a tsp there. Once I weighed several tsp together it was more accurate. Thanks for clarifying!

Part of the confusion might be ounce (weight) vs ounce (volume). I was referring to ounce as volume (i.e. fluid ounce).

1 fluid ounce = 2 tablespoons = 6 teaspoons = ~1.08 ounce (wt)

I gave this a try and am still a bit confused. Here's what I did yesterday. I should note that FC was <1 before I started.

1. Added 3.5 tsp of dichlor

2. Soaked for an hour (1 person)

3. Added 2 tbsp (1 oz per above) of dichlor after.

Theoretically this should be about right given the rules of thumb, right?

24 hours later I checked the chlorine level and it is 12ppm and CYA is 30ppm. Yikes! This seems really high. I think the goal of the diclor / bleach model is to keep FC low, between 1 - 3ppm, right?

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

AC

[quantumchromodynamics]

The rule of thumb is 3.5 teaspoons (.5833 oz) of dichlor added per 1 person-hour soak. You should not have added the 1 ounce of dichlor. Only the 3.5 teaspoons should have been added.

The only person who suggested adding 1 ounce of dichlor per day is the O.P, and they were asking if it was a good idea. No one has advised that one ounce be added per day.

At 30 ppm of cyanuric acid, it is time to switch to bleach. Maintain a 2 to 5 ppm level of chlorine.

Rules of thumb are always a starting point. They help establish a general idea of what to expect. It is always important to adjust based on frequent testing.

The level of chlorine that you maintain should be sufficient so that the level never falls below 1.0 ppm, and so that there is rarely ever any combined chlorine.

[mcw53]

I agree 100% with quantumchromodynamics. I was suggesting using the rule-of-thumb instead of the OP's suggestion of adding 1 ounce per day. By doing both, you added 9.5 teaspoons (1.5833 fluid ounces) of dichlor. This equates to approximately 18.5 ppm free chlorine. After a 1 hour soak plus 24 hours, your measured free chlorine was 12 ppm. This is about what I would expect.

Now that you have reached 30 ppm CYA, you should switch to bleach. The rule-of-thumb with bleach is to add 5 fluid ounces of 6% unscented bleach (e.g. Clorox Regular) for every person-hour soak. You'll probably want to wait until your free chlorine drops to 5 ppm before getting back in the hot tub.

The advantage of the dichlor-then-bleach method is limiting your CYA concentration to ~30 ppm. As CYA concentration increases, the effectiveness of chlorine decreases. So, over time, you will be able to maintain a safe soaking environment with lower FC levels. Another advantage of dichlor-then-bleach is that it will increase your water replacement interval. Water typically needs to be replaced every 3 months using dichlor only. With dichlor-then-bleach, 5-6 months is typical. Bleach is also cheaper than dichlor.

[DK117]

Rules of thumb are always a starting point. They help establish a general idea of what to expect. It is always important to adjust based on frequent testing.

Evidently I failed ... all I wanted to do was suggest a simple starting point and establish a general idea of what to expect.

However, now I'm a bit frustrated. With all your formal calculations, you miss the biggest impact on your water quality. What on earth is one person hour of soaking? Is this a little person or an NBA player? 5 ft 5 female with lotion and perfume or a 6 ft sweaty male, not to mention children? Your calculations are nothing more than rules of thumb an guestimations because you can never perfectly measure what impact one person hour of soaking equates to. It's absurd.

So it makes sense to develop a rule of thumb and learn from testing, on that I agree. But you guys are killing me with the suggestions based upon one person hour as if you know the physical makeup of that "one person."

DK117

[DK117]

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

despite my frustration on the direction of this thread, gotta give props to this response, it's brilliant.

DK117

[chem geek]

I was the one who worked out the rough rule of oxidizer amount per person-hour and never expected it to be something that someone "must" follow. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked. The person-hour chlorine demand is a rule-of-thumb or starting point. Clearly, the primary goal is to add enough oxidizer such that one gets a Free Chlorine (FC) reading of at least 1 ppm by the next time they soak so one should add more or less chlorine after their soak to achieve that goal using an accurate test kit.

But most people not using any guideline don't use enough oxidizer, especially if they soak for longer or with more people, so having a rule-of-thumb is helpful. Obviously there are differences between the amount of sweat and urine introduced by different people, but it's still surprisingly close as a rough rule. There are also adjustments needed if one has an ozonator.

[DK117]

Well I'm back. I first must acknowledge the great wealth of information found on this forum. It was my original ascertation that there was in fact too much information. To clarify my position I'd simply reiterate my desire for an executive summary, something like "try this" if this doesn't work go read Nitro and Chemgeek's threads. So after 3.5 months of outstanding water, here's what I'm doing.

4 oz Chlorox daily 6 days a week

1 oz Dichlor, 1 oz MPS, 1 oz Leisure Time Enzyme every Saturday

also rinse out filter, pleat by pleat for about 10 minutes every Saturday.

That's it. I think my chlorine demand is around 2 oz Chlorox, but it's just a guess, I will vary the 4 oz daily if we don't use the tub for a while. I haven't used my test strips (and don't own a test kit) for weeks. I suppose my biggest potential problem is over chlorination. Of which I use the nose test to back off ie I can smell if I've put too much in and just skip the next day if needed. I'm not 100% sure on the Enzyme, but I've got no foaming problems so I continue to use it thinking the Enzyme is helping.

So there you go, an inelegant, uneducated, poor mans solution to water chemistry. I never would have arrived at this solution without first reviewing the expert data here. However, I would suggest this as a starting point, vs an end solution when a newbie such as myself first arrives at this forum.

Just my opinions.

Thanks again for the assistance.

DK117

[dwd40]

Just joined he forum. Great help in reading the posts and trying to get the best use out our hot tub.

I'm thinking of switching to the Dichlor/bleach method. When adding the bleach do you add it into the filter compartment like Dichlor granuals or is it better for the tub equipment to have the bleach diluted before hitting the filter?

Thanks.

[chem geek]

With almost any of the concentrated chemicals they should be added slowly to the bulk spa water with the circulation pump running. You should not add either Dichlor nor bleach to the filter compartment or skimmer (it's not so terrible with bleach, but the Dichlor could get caught in the cartridges where the locally high chlorine level could be a problem until it dissolves).

[dwd40]

Thanks for the advice. I never gave the idea of adding the Dichlor to the filter compartment a second thought since that is what is specified in my spa manual and instructions from the spa retailer. I'll change my maintenance routine.

Thanks.